


like we're all going to make it

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon, although bordering on ot4 for a bit, am au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“What about you, you’re not worried about yourself either, then?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Nah, I’ll figure something out,” Niall says. There’s one last question he can ask, and that one doesn’t come with so pretty an answer. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Louis could ask him if he’s worried about the four of them together, as more than a band, as a collection of brothers. He’s already lost one, he doesn’t think he’s getting him back. He knows they need a break from each other as much as they need a break from their work so they don’t fall apart. He just wants to make sure they don’t drift apart either.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>[Or it’s their last night as a band before the break and they spend it swimming ‘round in their glasses and talking out of their asses.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	like we're all going to make it

**Author's Note:**

> Extra special shout out to Cara for destroying me with this idea and then letting me have it and run with it. 
> 
> This is part of a series of Christmas present fics (...loosely) based on songs from Made in the AM.

Niall dances impatiently from foot to foot on the other side of Liam’s door, cellphone pressed to his ear as Bobby blathers on about cabbage for some reason.

He likes the cabbage talk generally, always desperate to hear about the normal shit from home to keep the rest of his life in perspective. It's just his boys are on the other side of the door waiting for him, and he's never the last one to show.

“Hey, da, I gotta go, okay?” he says when he can't take it anymore.

“All right, go on then. Be safe be good,” he says gruffly, taking the quick cut off in stride as he usually does. They get interrupted a lot, it's par for the course.

“I will, love ya,” Niall promises because Bobby says that every time they end a conversation.

He lets himself into Liam’s house, disarming the alarm before popping it back on. He leaves his shoes under the coat rack by the door even though nobody else does. He can already hear their voices echo from back in the house. He puts his phone on the table by the door where the other three have already set their phones, a strict policy for nights like these.

He's greeted by the clack-clacking of Watson’s massive paws from where his nails hit the hardwood floors. Watson turns his big bloodshot eyes up at Niall and sniffs his hands until Niall’s patting at his head.

“You eat those shoes, we’re going to have problems,” Niall tells him. He doesn't answer because he's a fucking dog, but Niall likes to think they understand each other.

“Stay,” Niall tells him even though he's not that kind of dog, and wanders off back towards his boys.

They're all crowded on Liam’s bigger than king sized bed, Louis nursing a glass of champagne and tucked under the covers at the head, Harry and Liam sprawled out at the foot. There's a spot for Niall to Louis’ left, just waiting for him to slide into it like the final puzzle piece.

“Hey, there’s our boy!” Liam says, removing his hands from Harry’s hair to thrust them in the air in a cheer. His eyes are glassy, which means he's already drunk or he's already a bit weepy. From the way Harry’s hair is halfway through a French braid, he figures it's drunk.

“Where you been? We missed you,” Harry pouts.

“Sorry, Bobby was talking like I'm not going home tomorrow,” Niall says and the way they freeze suggests it’s the wrong thing to say. Are they not talking about it then? Did they already decide what was off-limits for the night?

“Slug club, Neil, get in,” Louis says, peeling back the duvet before making grabby hands at him.

Niall climbs into the bed, allowing himself to be maneuvered around by Louis until he's resting against the headboard and half of Louis is laying back on his chest.

“Would you like a drink?” Louis says, swatting around blindly until he pulls a goddamn bottle of vintage Dom Perignon and a flute literally out of the blankets covering him. Only Louis Tomlinson.

“Yeah, all right,” he says with a laugh and watches Louis struggle to unstopper the bottle and pour it from where he’s lying down before gently taking it from his hands so he doesn’t spill it all over his chest and Liam’s bed.

“All right, lads, what do you think?” Liam says, presenting Harry’s finished braid. Harry gamely turns this way and that to model it.

"That's actually quite nice, Payno,” Louis says.

"Always the tone of surprise," Liam says, pursing his lips.

Niall melts a little. It’s almost too much, how normal it is.

“A toast now that Niall’s here,” Harry interrupts, leaning precariously off the side of the bed, likely to fall over at any second, until he swoops back up with two more champagne flutes for himself and Liam.

Once they’ve all been served, they sit there looking at each other with glasses in their hands, unsure what to say. There’s so much behind them, so much ahead of them. It’s hard to put it into words, what Niall’s feeling. Ironic, he supposes, for someone who’s meant to put feelings into words and music.

He can touch on universal experiences just fine, love and sex and friendship and home and loss. But this, what they’ve done together, their five-plus years together. It’s too singular, they’ll never be able to explain it.

“To us,” Niall says to break the silence.

“To the fans,” Louis says.

“To the end of the first chapter,” Liam says.

“To the future,” Harry says.

They toast and drink. Niall lets the entire glass slide down his throat, bubbling along the way. There isn’t enough in it to combat the anxiety he feels at the finality of it all. They’ve done their last performance, they’ve given their last interview. On the other side of tonight, planes and family and the rest of their lives await them.

They forgo talk of the future in favor of the past, trading stories like they haven’t sat through more than their fair share of montages the past few months. But it’s private, this type of talk, things that haven’t been captured on camera for all the world to see. Lessons learned, battles won and lost. Niall doesn’t remember all of it, but he remembers as much of it as he can. He soaks up the other boys’ perspectives and catalogues them away for reference.  

Harry and Liam are asleep by three am, but it doesn't seem by choice. Liam falls asleep in the middle of an actual sentence, one second he's chatting away and the next he's breathing steadily with his mouth still hanging open. Harry had gone ages back, curled up in his corner of the bed with his arms crossed like he's trying to take up as little room as he can.

They've greeted the sunrise together before on nights like this. They've done some of their best work, they've said some of the worst things, they've made some of the most important decisions at this time of night. But now on the other end of it all, they can't all stay awake. They can't suck up the last few hours of their lives as a band for a while.

Niall feels it too, sitting heavy on his eyes and in his bones. There's something about the homestretch that makes him so nervous he wants to sleep it all away and wake up the next morning with it over and done with. He won’t be able to sleep anyway.

He’s pleasantly buzzed from the four of them finishing off the bottle of champagne and moving to the room temperature case of beer sitting on the bedside table. He’s been watching how much Louis’ drinking because he knows Louis will hate himself waking up with a hangover for his three hour drive.

“You awake?” Louis whispers.

“Yeah,” Niall answers, thankful he isn’t alone. He doesn’t have to be alone just yet.

“I will come to see you, wasn't just talking shit,” Louis says like he can read Niall’s mind. Maybe after all this time he can.

“Ta, that'd be nice,” Niall says, tilting his bottle at Louis before taking a drink.

“Sorry I've not come before.”

“Well, it's a ways away.”

“No, it's really not,” Louis says, but the irritation in his voice seems to be directed more at himself than it is at Niall.

Niall had been the one most terrified of losing them all, years back when they were all over here in England and he was stuck in Ireland. He'd begged them all to come, each plea like a silent cry not to forget him. Not to think it might be easier to go on as a four piece of English lads instead of having to navigate around their one Irish member.

They’ve all spent their time in Ireland now, paid their dues to his homeland. But going home for a series of concerts isn’t the same as going home to experience Ireland. It’s not the same as Niall having been to each of their family’s homes for dinner. It’s not the same if they haven’t woken up to the smell of one of Bobby’s full breakfasts.

In the end, Harry had come, assuaging all of his fears, and after that it really didn’t matter. He left home shortly after and he’s yet to really come back. Not until tomorrow.

“Don't know what the fuck I'm doing,” Louis says, but Niall doesn’t follow.

“How do you mean?”

“Been talking about us all going on a break, but I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing. The company, the kid, the free time, that's all a big unknown,” Louis explains. “Don't know what we were all thinking, trying to get away from all this. We know this. This is what we do.”

“We still do it. It’s just a break, Lou. You know better than anyone.”

He doesn’t like the secret implication in Louis’ tone, that this is not only what he does, but all he knows how to do. He’s got confidence for days, this kid, but so rarely for the things he needs it most.

“What if it’s not just a break? We can plan to come back all we want, but what if life happens and it’s not just a break?”

“I’m not worried about us,” Niall says, working a hand down to squeeze at Louis’ arm. “I'm not worried about Liam, he'll work every day of his life, and people will ask him to. I'm not worried about Harry, he's got the whole world eating out the palm of his hand. And I'm not worried about you. Because nobody in this fucking business has fought harder for us, nobody has taken better care of us. And if you take that and you give it to your kid and you give it to your artists, then you're gold. Salt of the earth, every single one of you.”

Louis turns his head away, even though in this position Niall can’t really see his face anyway. He’s sure Louis is working hard to conceal a self-deprecating flush on his face. Mostly because Louis thinks that’s a sign of weakness, but also because he knows Niall doesn’t like it when he puts himself down. Niall leans over to take a look at him anyway.

Every word he uses to reassure Louis is meant to reassure himself too. It's been easy to look at the hiatus as this abstract thing, something you look forward to but never fully comprehend just how much it means until it's staring you in the face. 

“You're so certain,” Louis says softly.

“Well, I am your biggest fan.”

Louis blanches at that. “What if they forget about us?” He knows Louis means the fans and not the whole world, because most of the world couldn't be arsed to spare a thought for One Direction. It's a ridiculous thing to entertain -- they might be outgrown, moved on from, he thinks, but never forgotten.

Niall thinks about it anyway. “Then they forget about us.”

“Fuck, Nialler, what the fuck,” Louis says, not quietly.

“Maybe they don’t remember what we’ve done. Doesn’t change the fact that we still did it. That we meant something to some people for some amount of time. Even if we aren’t part of people’s lives anymore, doesn’t negate that we were at one point. Doesn’t make it any less.”

He believes that, he really does. There are things that have been a part of his life, things that are so formative to who he's become even though he may not need them or like them anymore. They still burn bright in his soul, permanently part of his DNA, of what makes him Niall Horan, even if he doesn't realize it.

They've done something amazing, against all odds, the scope of which they still don't understand. People tell them every day they've changed lives, they've saved lives even. Even if history forgets them, if twenty years down the road What Makes You Beautiful is the only thing they're remembered for, it'll be okay. The boys know what they've done, their family of crew members know what they've done, the fans know what they've done. That's all Niall needs.

“What about you, you’re not worried about yourself either, then?” Louis asks. Niall should have known he'd have done the math eventually and realized he was missing from his own equation regarding Lack of Break Worry.

“Nah, I’ll figure something out,” Niall says. There’s one last question he can ask, and that one doesn’t come with so pretty an answer.

Louis could ask him if he’s worried about the four of them together, as more than a band, as a collection of brothers. He’s already lost one he doesn’t think he’s getting him back. He knows they need a break from each other as much as they need a break from their work so they don’t fall apart. He just wants to make sure they don’t drift apart either.

People laugh when Louis keeps promising to see them, when he keeps planning to keep them in his life, but Niall doesn’t find that particularly funny. He wants to do the same thing, he wants to guarantee their presence. Maybe he should tell Louis then.

“I think it's going to be like whiplash,” Louis says. “We go and we go and we go and then tomorrow we come to an abrupt stop, right? Like running towards a wall but not giving yourself time to stop, so you either smack into it or you turn so hard you get whiplash. I'm not sure which pain will be worse.”

Niall hums in consideration. There's really something to that, to easing off the gas first before stomping on the brakes. The break.  

“I'm just previewing you my new single, Whiplash, off the solo album we all know I'm going to make,” Louis says, pointing his sarcasm back at himself.

“It's a good conceit, I'll give you that.”

“Thank you very much.”

“It does seem impossible, but it's not. Not if you try to crash land where you belong. Maybe it'll cushion the blow.”

Louis curls his fingers into Niall’s shirt until he's got a fistful. It feels grounding, certainly for the two of them, that they're clutching each other like the morning will need to drag them apart kicking and screaming.

“And where do you belong?”

“Home,” Niall jokes, but Louis asks the harder part of the question anyway.

“Where’s that now?”

“Dunno,” he says. It’s not London or LA. He’s not even sure it’s Mullingar anymore. Home is wherever he feels comfortable in his own skin, so perhaps he carries home around with him now. “Don’t think it’s any one place.”

“That also scares me,” Louis admits quietly.

“You really think you’re going to be forgotten?”

“Doesn't matter, dunno what I'm saying, m’just talking shit anyway,” Louis says, throwing up the familiar shield he uses when he thinks he’s gone too far, he’s gotten too vulnerable, he’s too exposed. It’s important to stay guarded, especially in this business, but Niall is just Niall. And there’s no need.

He scoots off of Niall’s chest for the first time in hours, rolling over onto his own side of the bed with his back turned to Niall.

“It’s not shit. Louis. Don’t do that,” Niall says, tugging at him until he rolls back over and into Niall's arms where he belongs. “It's not shit. I'm wondering the same things too.”

Louis regards him carefully, like he's trying to decide whether or not he thinks Niall’s just trying to assuage him. Niall does do that, in fairness, and Louis hates it, calls him out when Niall's focusing on being placating instead of honest.

Louis decides to say, “You never said.” Niall thinks this means he passed.

“Yeah, but I thought.”

“Never know what you’re thinking, do I,” Louis says. “Lots going on up there I suspect you’re never saying.”

“All you have to do is ask.”

“Mm,” Louis says. “Maybe one day I will.”

Louis’ breathing starts to even out and he adjusts his head on Niall’s chest like he's trying to pick the best, squishiest bit. There's not much squish left, he's both happy and sad to say, but Louis seems satisfied enough.

“Goin’ on to sleep?” Niall breathes.

He makes a noise that sounds like a no. “Just a bit longer maybe. Stay up with me just a bit longer?” he asks, but Niall knows sleep’s taking him anyway.

Niall kisses the top of his head. “I’m not going anywhere. None of us are. Couldn’t get rid of us if you tried. We’re gonna be okay, Louis. You have my word.”

He doesn’t know if Louis heard him or if he’s drifted off, and it doesn’t really matter. It won’t be first time he tells Louis. He’ll keep telling him and telling him until he believes it, until his words become actions and his actions become undeniable. Niall’s not going anywhere.

It's not that they're going to wake up tomorrow and stop being One Direction. That'll be who the five of them are forever, long after the band's properly over and done with, no matter who comes and goes over the years. And it's bigger than them, it'd be selfish to think it begins and ends with the five of them. It's never only been about a bunch of kids in a boyband. That's how he knows he's sticking around. That's how he knows they'll be all right.

Niall feels a hand wrap around his ankle. He looks down, Harry's eyes are still closed even though he presses his thumb into the bone. Liam's eyes are open, shining just enough by moonlight to tell until he crinkles a smile at Niall so big his eyes squeeze shut. They’re not going anywhere either.

\----

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you need me, I am [here.](http://wickershire.tumblr.com/post/135197528488/title-like-were-all-gonna-make-it-rating)


End file.
